Summary: Because Jim misses bedtime stories and a life like this should not be real, but it is so he copes the only way he knows how.

Warning: This is not a happy story, or at least not for Jim in the beginning. Beware of angst, mentions of abuse, an extremely large section on Tarsus IV, and Kirk/Spock. Jim will also be slightly out of character since I intend to make him a bit more on the grim side.

Disclaimer: If I owned it…..well let's just say that no one anywhere would ever doubt that Kirk/Spock was canon.

AN: Okay first I must say that I am truly honored by the reviews and responses that I have received and offer my sincere thanks to all who took the time to do so.

Also to LostSchizophrenic who was by their own admission too lazy to log in (=^.^=) this chapter is dedicated to that piece of soul you are so sure you lost!


The Pied Piper.


Life on Tarsus is strange because it is hard but good. He starts off living with a couple who work a mid-sized amount of farmland. He stays in the attic and tries his best to not be seen unless he is in the fields. The people that took him were kind, Leo and Marixia are the kind of people he had always dreamed existed but was now too wounded to trust they loved each other and tried to treat him like their own but he had already been fooled in his lifetime and would not be again. Still the fact that they reached out for him soothes some part of his soul.

He still does not make friends, he is still too wolf like for the other adults to trust him and too grown in the worst ways for the other children his age to like him. His caretakers seem to realize his need for solitude and fix the small shed at the end of the property for him to live in, though they tell him he is always welcome to stay with them.

He declines.

So he keeps to himself like he always had in Iowa and life is alright but he is lonely because the voice had left him and he was too damaged and soiled for real people to tolerate. Three months in things change when he meets a small child by a riverbank, it is almost night and the child is crying and scared and James is furious, who left him here he's a baby not like I was, they deserve to die for leaving him here alone like this but remains calm when he approaches the boy.

He goes slowly, like he is approaching a wounded but still dangerous animal the way that people had always approached him making soothing noises in his throat and is surprised when the kid launches himself at James when he realizes he is not alone anymore. James stiffens because he is not used to positive physical contact but some feral part of him seems to recognize that this is a pup and that he needs to protect it because no one had protected James and he would never let that happen to a pup if he could help it so he wraps the boy in a soothing embrace and carries him back to his shed careful not to be seen.

He holds him and offers him comfort the only way he knows how, with soft noises and a warm embrace and the boy finally calms and James can study him in the light. He is soft is the first thing James thinks, soft in a way he had never been, and still smells like sweet child so he knows that he has not been abandoned for long. His hair is a delicate golden brown and his eyes a sweet wide toffee as they stare up at him with curiosity and trust and James knows for the first time that savage need to protect someone other than himself.

His voice is rusty and deep with disuse but he still manages to make it work.

"What's your name kid?" The question sounds harsh and older than he is but the child just smiles delightedly at the sound of his voice.

"Kevin." Even his voice is childlike in a way that James has never been and it solidifies his choice to keep the child.

"How old are you Kevin?" He estimates the boy at around four since he seems to be so young at mind.

"Five." James is slightly shocked that he is still so innocent at such an old age because James had never been that innocent and it once again hits home for him how very different he is.

"Why were you outside alone?" The question is spoken softly in an effort not to upset him although James has already formed his own opinions about the matter.

"I couldn' find ma paren's." His eyes well up with tears and his speech betrays his age and James knew he was right in the beginning and those people deserve to die for leaving a child this young alone because James was different and he could survive at that age, Kevin can not and he does not like the sight of Kevin in tears.

"I'll look for them," he promises the child and he will look for them because he is going to use his studies of anatomy to teach them how to treat a child, "and for now you can stay with me alright?"

"Otay." The boy is all smiles now, tears dried tracks across his face as he stares at James. "Wha's your name?"

"James."

"Jhmes?" Kevin is cute as he wrinkles his nose at the way the word rolls in his mouth, too young to say it right and James knows that he will have to think of something else.

"Not exactly kid," the other boys smile dims and James finds he does not like that at all. "Call me J.T." It is a simply solution, James Tiberius broken down to two letters so that the young one could say it correctly.

"J.T.!"

"Yeah kid that's right."

A month passes by and J.T. watches Kevin grow before his eyes as he begins to teach him the things he had taught himself over the years, things about the wild and how to move to make less noise, small pieces about protecting himself. Kevin picks it up fast and J.T. is proud of him like no one had ever been proud of J.T. For the first time in years he reads bedtime stories to someone other than himself. He teaches him how to work in the fields and what plants to touch and what to stay away from, and in his distraction he fails to notice Marixia and Leo notice the child he is keeping.

So the next morning when two strangers come barreling onto the farm J.T. is caught off guard when they head directly to his shed followed by Marixia (because Leo is not home) where Kevin is still asleep. Caught off guard but not for long. Sprinting he is at the door before them, crouched, knife that he is never without in hand and a savage snarl twisting his too young features. At twelve J.T. knows that he will kill to protect his charge and nothing inside him rebels at the thought.

The adult's slow, confusion on their faces at the sight of the feral child before them, barring their way to the door. The man steps forward and then quickly back when a growl echoes from before him and he barely dodges the swipe of a deadly knife.

"James?" It is Marixia and she is confused and James snarls at her because he had thought she loved children and how could she let these strangers come here like this and refuses to let anyone passed him.

The sound of a door creaking open behind him sends horror through his soul because now they would see Kevin and would know his face and that was never good but he had never fought and protected someone else before so he needed to run, to escape to a place where he could protect the child.

"J.T?" The voice was soft and sleepy; having been awoken by what Kevin thought was an animal so he wanted his protector, his knight like in the story book that J.T. reads to him at bedtime.

"Kevin, go back inside." The voice was cold in a way that it had never been around the other boy and he blinked sleepily to clear his eyes.

"Kevin!" The joyous voice of a woman rang out across the landscape as Kevin took in the sight of his parents on the other side of his knight.

"Mama!" The boy rushed passed J.T. who made a move as if to stop him, panic on his face, but he had been caught off guard by Kevin rushing forward because he had never ran to Winona like that and why would Kevin go to someone who abandoned him?

J.T.'s stance did not waver in his confusion, the knife stayed firmly in hand and his eyes never left the adults before him, calculating what he needed to do to get Kevin back unharmed if they made the wrong move. The joyous reunion before him is enough to shock him slightly but not enough to make him let down his guard.

He hears Kevin telling the woman in his rushed and disjointed way about J.T. and how nice he was and how he protected him and read him stories and taught him things. He sees the man take a step towards the smaller boy and the growl that rips from his throat is enough to silence everyone because he would not let that man near Kevin because he was big and strong and would do so much damage like Frank had to J.T. when he was small.

"J.T.?" It is Marixia and she seems to know that he prefers J.T. now because that is what Kevin calls him and she wants him to stay calm. "J.T. why didn't you tell us that you had Kevin? We could have told his parents." The statements are stern and almost disapproving but what does she know about being abandoned and why would he tell those people who left Kevin where he was?

"Why would I do that?" The question is genuine because he can not see why she would want Kevin to go back to people who don't want him.

"So that they would know he was alright and they could take him home." She speaks to him like he is a child and J.T. finds that he does not like that because no one ever had before and he was far from a child now so it was insulting.

"They left him there." He does not want to say it in front of Kevin, does not want to hurt the pup but he knew it was the truth. "Why would I give him back to people that abandoned him, I can take care of him just fine."

"Oh child…" the words are breathed out by the fair skinned woman who had still not released Kevin from her embrace.

The adult male speaks up for the first time, his voice a low husky pitch that J.T. is certain that Kevin will never obtain. "We didn't leave him kid I promise. He wondered away from our camp one night and we couldn't find him. We had given up hope and thought he was dead until Marixia called us up and told us you had him."

J.T. is not certain if that is true since he rarely leaves the farm and goes into the main settlement and besides he is not keen on trusting these strangers when it comes to Kevin.

"Kevin is that true?" His voice is soft pitched when he speaks to the child, unlike the snarling growl used when it is directed at the adults.

"Uh-huh." The smaller boy nods his head rapidly, not sure what is going on but he knows that he wants J.T. and his parents to like each other because he loves J.T. and doesn't want to lose him.

J.T.'s laser blue eyes catches and holds those of the woman who is cradling his pup and she feels herself tear up at the pain and wildness that is barely concealed within them. "He got lost; you didn't get tired of him and leave him out there? You didn't abandon him?" The questions are sharp and to the point, a determined effort to get his answers straight out.

"Never. We would never abandon our baby."

"You want him and will protect him? Love him?"

Tears no longer held back rained down from her eyes as she swore with conviction. "Always."

Blue eyes are flame as they hold hers and he speaks again. "Good. If I ever find out otherwise I will hunt you and you will never lie again."

She believed him, knew in the depths of her soul that if they ever mistreated their child and this boy found out he would hunt them down and kill them. It frightened her that such a person was young enough to be her child himself. What had been done to this boy to make him believe such things would be necessary?

Flame softened and turned to ocean depths when they landed on the still form of Kevin, a smile stretched across his face, one that looked so beautiful and so wrong that the others could not help but be in awe.

A hand reaches out and the other boy darts forward without hesitation, ripping himself from his mother's arms and diving into J.T.'s as the other boy cuddles him close and eyes the adults with a still predatory gaze.

"Kevin you're going home now alright."

The other boy nods, his eyes happy to be back with his parents and yet sad to be leaving his J.T. behind.

"I want you to take this," a hand reached down and pulled another smaller knife from a sturdy boot, "it was going to be yours anyways." It is beautiful to Kevin who had always wanted one but was considered too young, the blade was thin but wicked and the handle carved with a beautiful shield.

"You never go anywhere without it alright. Remember what I taught you and if something happens you come here okay. You find me and I will protect you." The words are important to J.T. because he wants Kevin to have options he never had wants him to know that he always has somewhere to run to.

The smile he receives is so radiant that briefly he can not help but think of Winona when she looked at Samuel because that is what love looked like and God he had always wanted to see it.

The three leave and J.T. can feel Marixia watching him in silence but he ignores her as he gazes at the fading figure of Kevin feeling a lose within himself that he had never experienced before because he had never actually lost anyone who had loved him because Winona and Samuel never had and was not sure how to deal with it.

He does not expect to see Kevin again and is deeply surprised when he and his parents arrive on Leo and Marixia's farm a week later. The woman who he learns is called Kathleen smiles brightly at him and the man whose name is William gives a manly nod in his direction as Kevin launches himself into J.T.'s arms like he never left them.

All is where it should be in that moment.

Word spreads of J.T. through out their section of the colony quickly. They all remember the wild eyed boy that came to them, remembered how they could not help but recoil at the sight of him, so they are disturbed when they learn that he had been taking care of the missing Kevin Riley for over a month with no one the wiser. Neighbors flock to the Riley homestead and are shocked to see a smiling, tanned, and healthy child instead of the traumatized one they had been expecting.

William and Kathleen retell the story of finding their son and Kevin himself sings J.T.'s praises for all who can hear.

"He was like a little father protecting his child." Kathleen tells entranced neighbors one day at a fruit stand in town.

"No," William disagrees with her quietly, aware that he has the attention of all. "No he was like a Terran wolf protecting its pup. A wild thing protecting young."

Eventually the gossip dies down and people speak of it less but no one forgets it, no one forgets J.T.

Time goes quickly for J.T. for the first time in his life. He is happy in a way he had never expected to be, content to work on the farm during the day and teach himself at night from the material that Marixia and Leo were always bringing him. He enjoys the days that Kevin is allowed to spend with him on the farm, the nights where it seems as if the other boy had never left and J.T. teaches him survival and reads bedtime stories. Life on Tarsus IV is still hard but it has gone beyond good for J.T., beyond any happiness he had ever found before.

He thinks that maybe this is what it means to have a family but he isn't sure because he has never had one before but he hopes it is because it feels so good and he isn't as lonely as he used to be even though he still misses the voice.

Slowly though things begin to change, the crops are not as bountiful as they were the year before so food is a bit tighter than it used to be. J.T. knows about the wildlife so he finds some plants and things to supplement with and he even leaves some for Marixia and Leo because they had not thrown him away yet and he knows how it feels to go without food. They tell him that it is alright because they have plenty for themselves, there are store houses of food for the colony and Starfleet would help them if things go wrong. He doesn't need to tell them he doesn't trust the situation, they can see it in his eyes.

They never get a chance to tell him he was right.

He is out one day on one of his treks through the surrounding woods when he hears the screams from the farm. Panicked he takes off running, because oh God he didn't want anything to be happening to them and what if Kevin was there speed and agility he had honed through years of abuse giving his feet wings as he sails over fallen trees and across babbling brooks. He slows when he gets closer to the edge of the woods, slows because the screams have faded and all he can hear is the quiet murmuring of voices. Quiet compared to the screams but loud in their own way since he can hear them clearly.

"Is there anyone else here? Tells us the truth and we'll make it easy." The voice is harsh, not the dulcet tones of Marixia or Leo that he had grown used to over the months. He sneaks closer and is able to see what is happening. Marixia is on the ground, her hands cradling Leo as he bleeds out into the dirt, J.T. can tell from the stain on his shirt and the pallor of his skin that the man is dying and his heart clenches as rage begins to fog his vision. There are two guards standing above them, he recognizes the uniform from the city and knows that they are not from their part of the colony, that they do not know of him, that the rumors have not reached that far yet. He knows that something has gone terribly wrong.

"There's no one here!" It's Marixia and she is crying, tears streaking her face to mix with blood that J.T. is not sure belongs to her or to Leo. He finally knows what it feels like to have someone love him like a parent because she was lying to protect him and he could see that and he knew that he was going to loose her as well.

The guard fires once, a single shot to the head that sends her body down, blood mingling with her husbands and coating the soil that they had worked so hard to cultivate. J.T. is enraged because they had killed the only parents he had ever almost had and he would make them pay, would take their lives in payment.

He waits in the woods as night slowly begins to fall, evening taking the light from day as the guards ransack the house, coming out with food and supplies before getting ready to leave. J.T.'s shed is on the property edge and looks abandoned so they ignore it and start on the long walk back to town. He circles them, making no noise, concentrating on the rhythm of their footstep, the sway of their rifles on their backs and the bags of stolen goods they cart between them. He waits for his chance and hopes it comes soon because he has to get to Kevin, to make sure he is alright but he refuses to leave these two alive, will not leave until their blood soaks his hands.

They stop suddenly and one guard heads off just out of sight into the woods and J.T. follows and finds him pants unzipped and unaware. The knife that blossoms through his throat is a surprise and J.T. relishes the gurgle of chocked air that is his reward. He removes it, cleans the blade and puts it back in its sheath before wiping the blood that spills down his arm onto the soil below. He takes the rifle, a quick overview and remembered text tells him how to use it and he sets out after the remaining one.

The other guard is approaching from the road, wondering no doubt what was taking his partner so long and J.T. is pleased when he steps further into the enclosure of woods because the longer he can hide the bodies the more time he has to work with.

The first shot catches him in the tender flesh of the thigh, J.T.'s aim is off since he had been aiming for his groin, but it takes him down anyways. The second hits his shoulder and the third his eye. The guard goes down and doesn't move. J.T. has taken two lives now and yet he can not bring himself to care because it was only fair that he took their lives since they had already taken his.

He takes the other rifle and notes the location because he knows that he is going to need the food that they had stolen but first he needed to get to Kevin. So he takes off again, running this time and scared that perhaps he had wasted too much time in killing those men but determined to push on no matter what because Kevin was his and he wasn't going to let anyone take him away.

He isn't sure how long it takes him to get to the Riley homestead but it is dark and he can see the lights from his position so he slows down and sticks to the shadows. It is like déjà vu because he can hear voices in the wind and he knows that they don't belong to William and Kathleen and he can hear sobbing in the background and that he does recognize as Kevin's. He doesn't wait like he did last time; he knows that the guards will kill so he can't take the chance they will get to Kevin before he gets to them. Instead he flows out of the shadows, knife in hand and rifles across his back as he slinks forward until he is close to them, until Kathleen and William can see him even through the blood that coats their faces and Kevin's sobs are like drumbeats in his ears.

He attacks the first one before they notice him, sinking his blade deep in between a rib and ripping it out to slash at an exposed throat, a third life fades as easily as the first two he had taken that night. The fourth guard is a challenge since he gave up his element of surprise and the other man is trained and strong. His down fall is his arrogance, his belief that his partner died because he was unskilled and not because the child with the knife was smarter. J.T. takes a roundhouse kick that would have knocked a grown man out but he is used to those things, used to the pain of beatings and the opening it leaves he takes to his advantage. His knees find purchase in the guard's stomach as they tumble to the ground; his knife drives deep into sensitive flesh as his teeth lock down onto a murderous throat. He rides out the man's dying struggles until he is limp and all J.T. can taste is blood. It is his fourth kill of the night.

He rises like hell spawn, covered in blood and eyes as sharp as steel and before he takes a step his arms are full of sobbing child and hysterical whimpers.

He stares down at his Kevin, still the same sweetly innocent five year old that he had kept those months ago but no Kevin is six now, six and not so innocent anymore and for that J.T. wants to kill those men again.

"Y-You came, you came…." The phrase is a sobbing litany in his chest as tears mingle with blood and dirt.

"I promised you I would Kevin. I always keep my promises." Because no one had ever kept a promise to J.T. and he would never be like them.

He holds the child close to him, and over the sounds of his sobbing he can hear the rattling death gasps of bodies to his left and he knows that he was too late to stop the guards from taking William and Kathleen. Too late to stop the beating that had taken their lives, but he had been in time to save Kevin and for that he was grateful. So he cradles the boy to him, soothes him by whispering those words that had always given him comfort and plans what the next step is because there is always another step.

"Nam-tor karik, Kevin. Rish-tor." He still doesn't know what they mean but they still bring comfort and he can feel his heart and Kevin's beating against the tattoos on his chest and he knows in that instance what to do.

He pulls the child back from him and stares down into bright toffee eyes and smiles, a grotesque stretch of lips and teeth behind a mask of blood but it still calms the other boy because he knows that J.T. would never hurt him.

"Kevin I need you to be strong and listen to me okay?" He is gentle but still urgent. "You need to go inside, go straight inside and only look straight ahead until you get in the house and pack up all of the food you can alright? Get whatever you want from the house but try and pack light we don't have much time. Don't come back out I'll come to you." The child is confused but he trusts J.T. and with a nod he goes forward, eyes straight ahead and fixed on his open front door.

J.T. knows that the situation hasn't set in for Kevin, that it doesn't seem real and that eventually he will break down but he can't let that happen here, there is too much to do and not enough time to do it in. Hands steady he grabs a tarp from the nearby barn and covers William and Kathleen because Kevin doesn't need to see anymore than he already has and for a moment he is sad that he could not do so for Leo and Marixia. He can hear Kevin fumbling in the house as he efficiently strips the guards of everything that he deems might be useful. Pants, boots, packs, knives and rifles, he leaves their shirts because they are too full of blood and ripped to be saved, he puts it all in a pile before grunting he drags the bodies as deep into the shadows as he can, a hard task for a person his age. He goes through everything, throws out what is useless, pictures and empty packages, before repacking everything.

It's in those moments when he finds it, the order that had cost him his life and had tainted Kevin. The data pad was on, the screen undamaged when he came across it and the words caught his eye and he stopped to give them his full consideration. He does not read the entire thing because there isn't time but what he does will never leave his mind.

"The revolution is successful. But survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV."

J.T. is enraged because he knows now who is responsible for the carnage around him, whose hands are coated with the blood of his almost family. He knows that his anger will help him, will be an aid to him in the days to come so he cradles it to his breast and nurses it with his soul but does not let it over take him because he still needs to think and do. Instead he strides towards the house and quickly sets about helping Kevin in his tasks and when they are finished he takes all but the smallest pack from the child and shoulders them himself.

He sets a hard pace for them, almost brutal but he knows that he has no choice. He leads Kevin deep into the woods, back the way he came until he comes across the bodies of his first two kills and sets about collecting from them as he had the others. He has gathered a lot now, too much for him to carry alone so he is forced to give Kevin some of his burden. The boy doesn't complain and J.T. knows that it is only his leadership that is keeping the child from collapsing in hysteria.

Their pace is slower but still quick and J.T. knows where he will go, knows where they can be safe. There is an outcropping of rock that contains a deep cave about a mile from his former home and he has explored it and knows it is safe. So he takes Kevin there, avoids actually going to Marixia and Leo's farm, and is pleased to note that all is quiet in the forest surrounding the cave. He deposits his spoils in a back corner and with the aid of a illuminated data pad quickly has a small fire burning, the smoke drifting upwards to a small crack in the roof and he is thankful they are far enough back that the light would not be visible to the outside, he knew that would aid in their avoiding detection.

He settles the exhausted Kevin in the corner by the packs and leaves briefly to gather more wood for the fire. He feeds the flames a few more sticks to keep it going and sets the rest of his bundle down. Quickly he checks his knives and the straps of two of his new rifles before deciding that he is properly prepared.

Crouching he is face to face with his charge and his voice is the same soothing constant that it always is with him. "Kevin I need you to stay here alright? I need to go back out there, to find out exactly what is going on and to get us some more stuff. I need to know you're safe and that means you need to stay here. Can you do that for me?"

"J.T. please don't go. I'm scared." The boy looks ready to pass out and the fear is so naked on his face that J.T. wants scream at the sight of it. He does no such thing.

"I'll be back Kevin, I promise you, but I have to go okay? Can you be strong for me, be brave?"

With a hiccupping sigh the child nods, wanting to please J.T. even as he wants to grab him and never let go.

Like smoke in the air he is gone between that second and the next. He knows that he needs to investigate further, needs to see the situation with the other surrounding colonists even as a part of him rails against leaving Kevin alone because he knows what it feels like to be alone and scared and Kevin doesn't need that. He can only swear that he will return to his new den as quickly as he is able to.

It takes him a few hours, he knows because he has timed the distances before, to reach the edge of the town that supports his part of the colony and what he finds is war. The guards J.T. realizes suddenly, must have started killing the settlers on the outside of town first in an effort to create a type of tightening net around the central town, to kill the most people with the least amount of warning. There is fighting in the streets and bodies sprawled haphazardly in every direction. He can hear the screams of the dying, the whimpers of the wounded, and the agonizing silence of the dead and it is horrible and sickening but J.T. can not help but be grateful that Kevin had not lived in town or he would have been too late.

He ignores what he can, stepping over and around bodies and splashing through not so shallow pools of blood. He is determined to find out what had sparked this massacre and to return to Kevin as quickly as possible.

It's the quietly muffled crying of a child that distracts him first.

He moves towards the sound, drawn to it by the same force that had drawn him so deeply to Kevin when he first laid eyes on the boy. What he finds is a small girl child, no older than his Kevin, hidden half beneath the bodies of who J.T. suspects were her parents, tiny hands shoved against her mouth to stifle her crying. It's a self preservation skill that one learns because if the enemy can hear you they can find you which is why J.T. has learned to never make a sound.

He slowly shifts the weight of the dead off her and she looks at him with wide and fearful green eyes out of a heart shaped face framed by wispy chocolate hair.

"My name's J.T. and I'm going to keep you safe." It is a statement and a promise and when he says the words J.T. feels the truth of them clench in his gut. He would protect this child and any others he could find, would protect them to the deaths of others or his own because he had already killed for Kevin and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would do it again for this girl and for any others he may find.

He grips her hand in his and pulls her to her feet gently and when he is sure she can walk on her own he sets off again because even if he wishes he could carry her he needs both hands free incase he needs to kill again. He doesn't try to stop her crying, doesn't ask her name, or try and tell her everything will be alright he knows that it will never be alright, that nothing will ever make this okay, instead he pulls her forward like he did for Kevin.

He slinks through the town, his new girl in tow, no longer looking for answers so much as looking for others to save, other children that he can take from death. He finds what he is looking for, finds more than he had hoped for and yet less than seemed possible. He pulls one out of the rubble of a collapsed building, pulls another from the safety of a garbage bin she had sought refuge in. He takes another life when he sees a guard kicking a prone body he remembers what the feel of heavy boots on his ribs feels like, remembers the anguish of being beaten into submission but is filled with rage when he realizes that he was to late to save the victim.

He finds some who are younger than he is, he pulls a toddler from a dead father's arms, and some who are roughly his age, there is a boy whose face has been disfigured by a rifle blast but he is alive and can move so J.T. has no qualms about taking him. He finds some who are older; there is almost glee in his heart when he castrates an unsuspecting guard and he ignores the mans cries for mercy that bastard had none to give to the girl who was older than J.T., the one who begged him to stop, to not to touch her and J.T. knows what it feels like to be touched against his will and gets the girl on her feet.

He doesn't know how many he has now, does not bother to keep track because numbers do not matter only getting them to safety does. He focuses on his surroundings and on taking the lives of any who would dare oppose his mission. It is surprisingly easy to get the upper hand on the guards. None of them suspect a child of being armed, of being dangerous, so their eyes forget to take in the ratio of blood on his form compared to his few visible injuries, they neglect to see the knives or the rifles until it is too late.

J.T. loses track of how many he kills.

Eventually he leaves the town because the group is large and it is harder to protect so many at once. He gets them into the woods and sets a hard pace to get them to the cave before they are discovered. He circles as they move, taking the front and the rear, leading and protecting to the best of his abilities. It takes them far longer than he would have liked and when they finally arrive they are exhausted and bloody and dawn is rising pink over the horizon but he knows that he can not rest yet.

"Go inside," he tells them and they listen because he is more of an adult than they are even if he is younger and all they want is someone to tell them what to do. "Go inside and stay put, don't come back out, don't touch anything, and stay quiet." He leaves again, using the last bit of time he has before day breaks upon them fully to go back to his shed and then to Marixia and Leo's and ransack the house further than what the guards had in an effort to gather anything useful now because he knows that soon it will be dangerous to leave the woods.

He gathers more food and fills containers with water, he gathers as many pieces of clothes that he can and the medical kit that he knew they kept fully stocked. He gets blankets and even gathers some of the games that they had because the smaller children would need to be kept occupied so they would stay quiet and safe and he manages to heft his burden and make his way back into the woods even though hunger is raking his body and exhaustion is beginning to show through the adrenaline.

When he gets there he can see that no one had moved in the time that he had been gone, they followed orders surprisingly well it seemed considering what had happened. He puts his gathered supplies in the same corner as the others and takes the medkit to the center of the cave and calls for all who are wounded to step forward, the number is alarmingly large.

In the end he tends as many of the wounds as he can to the best of his ability. He sows and bandages and gives pills and shots and prays with what is left of his soul that no one gets an infection sickness is harder to fight than people and he can't kill it with his bare hands or his knife. He takes a head count and finds that he has managed to save twenty three others including Kevin and excluding himself it was too late to save himself, he had been fucked over long before Tarsus went to hell and when the others have all finally passed out from exhaustion and shock he takes up guard by the opening, rifle in hand, and manages to fall into an uneasy sleep.

J.T. turns thirteen to genocide.


An: Thank you all for reading once again and I hope to hear from you. Oh and if you do review please do sign in so that I may respond to you! If you chose not to sign in I thank you from the bottom of my heart anyways!

Translations:

Nam-tor karik: Be strong

Rish-tor: Survive